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i followed percy around for the rest of the day.
the cyclopes with him — whose name was in fact tyson — looked like he was only a baby. probably homeless. left to live on the streets.
i remembered percy telling me about his friend named tyson. leave it to percy to make monster friends without realizing.
i followed percy to merriwether college prep. the students sit on beanbag chairs, not desks, and the teachers wear jeans and rock concert t-shirts to work.
it was weird. well, considering the fact that i was mainly schooled by an a.i. and my billionaire father, i don't know how a real classroom worked. but i imagined it to be this horrible hell, with demon teachers and what not.
i mean, that's how percy used to describe it.
percy's english teacher sent him and the entire school into the break yard to spend an hour with no adult supervision to see what would happen.
spoiler alert: there was a massive wedgie contest between the seventh and eighth graders, two pebble fights, and a full-tackle basketball game.
by now, i was more than confused. this is not what i expected school to be like. in that moment i was glad to be home-schooled.
some guy — matt sloan, they called him — led most of the activities.
sloan wasn't big or strong, but he acted like he was. he had eyes like a pit bull, and shaggy black hair, and he was dressed in expensive but sloppy clothes, like he wanted everybody to see how little he cared about his family's money. one of his front teeth was chipped. i saw when he gave a massive grin after pulling a successful wedgie.
he made the mistake of trying to wedgie the cyclopes.
word of advice: don't.
matt sloan snuck up behind him and tried to give him a wedgie, and tyson panicked. he swatted sloan away a little too hard. sloan flew fifteen feet and got tangled in the little kids' tire swing.
